Conference 2019: The Art of Your Words

Safety Harbor Writers & Poets welcomes all writers to our third conference since 2015. While it may be coziest of the three, we feel it will be the most inspiring and informative one yet. With a focus on story through fiction & non-fiction, poetry, film, and imagery, you’re sure to gain insight into the ways in which you express and further develop your art.

$125. before March 14/ $145 March 15 to the conference date. Partial or full scholarships possible (please send an email to inquire.) Conference ticket includes any or all of the following workshops for both days. If we have room prior to the conference date, we will offer individual sessions at $50. each.

Every attendee will receive a free t-shirt at registration. Please purchase ticket here or scroll to the bottom of the page. Only 60 spots will be sold.

Chris Shaun is a Hollywood outsider whose first script caught the interest of a well-known, award-winning film and television director. After pitching the screenplay, the project was picked up by a top-ranked producer whose studio has been recognized with numerous awards. Currently, the script is undergoing final rewrites and is on track to be made into a major motion picture. In this presentation, you’ll learn about taking your idea through the business end of the screenwriting process, including topics such as spec scripts, agents and managers, finding a director, seeking representation, etc. A question and answer session will follow.

STAR WARS may be more popular than Homer’s Odyssey or Thomas Malory’s legends of King Arthur legend. However, they share many of the same mythical qualities. Steve will be discussing the qualities used by storytellers to fuel imagination throughout the ages. He will also provide a handout for reference.

Steve Persall was conceived behind a drive-in theater his father managed. He grew up in projector booths, reading Pauline Kael and Vincent Canby like other kids read comic books. For 16 years he taught high school and was a stringer St.Petersburg (later Tampa Bay) Times. In 1993, Persall became the full-time movie critic. He held the critic position for 25 years, making him Florida ’s longest-tenured journalist on that beat. He’s a founding member of the Florida Film Critics Circle and also a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association. His commentary on all things cinema has been heard on local and national radio and television stations.

Lunch break: 12:15 to 2 p.m. Numerous lunch specials will be offered by local restaurants (details to be announced) … or bring your own.

Our photo streams show what we care about and hope to preserve, what moves and mystifies us, the people, places, and experiences that bring meaning and healing into our lives. In this workshop we will write creatively from personal photos to express the truth of what we feel – and know – and haven’t said, as we capture the beauty and deeper meaning of an image in words. We’ll write to reveal our identity, values, resilience, healing, relationships, and creativity.

An empathic and astute guide, Kelly leads expressive writing events for new and experienced writers to behold, shape and share their personal voice and artistic vision. Author of three poetry collections, Kelly is also author of Before You Forget – The Wisdom of Writing Diaries for Your Children. She produces the Our Voices Festival of Boston Area Women Playwrights, held at Wellesley College, now in its 13th year, and she produces the annual Boston Writing Retreat & the weeklong summer Play Lab for the International Women’s Writing Guild, where she serves on the board. Kelly founded the Farm Pond Writers Collective to guide women writers to write from their personal photos, develop their artistic voices and connect deeply with their creative lives.

In the book and movie Birdbox, the protagonists can only use their sight sparingly. Description and action are often defined by what we see. What about the other senses? Dianne Persall will discuss ways to infuse your writing with your other senses allowing your readers to more deeply understand your story.

Dianne Persall, a former stand up comic, hosts the monthly Story Circle Writers Group at the Safety Harbor Library. This group focuses on memoir writing but also encourages those who wish to write fiction, non-fiction and poetry. She has edited and printed three annual Story Circle collections. Additionally, she has had stories published in the first and second edition of the Odet literary journal.

Session One: 10:00 to 11:00 ~ Developing the Short Story using Traditional Storytelling Techniques

Instructor: Walt Belcher

This workshop will help you develop skills for creating short stories. Fact or fiction, the short story is an art form. The same skillsets can be used for writing articles and storytelling. Learn how to develop memorable characters and interesting plots; how to avoid clichés; how to hook the reader; how to inject humor, mystery, suspense, inspiration or horror; and how to come up with a good ending. Come prepared to write. The goal is for class members to leave with a story.

Walt Belcher has 40 years’ experience telling stories as a newspaper journalist. He also has taught media writing at the University of Tampa. Walt is a member of the Florida Storytelling Association and the Southern Order of Storytellers.

Your story takes place in early
19th century New York City. Or 17th century Paris. Or 1960s San Francisco. Your
characters, theme and plot are all figured out. You sit down to write and
realize….wait a minute. What did people wear in New York in 1834? What did
people eat in 1670 in Paris? How did they cook? Where did food come from? What
did San Francisco look like in 1965? What kind of slang did people use? Yikes, you realize. You have to
do…RESEARCH.

Don’t be afraid! Research goes
smoothly when you have a plan for getting to the heart of what you need to know
to write an authentic story, right down to those details about what people
wore, how they talked and what they ate. Research will also inform you about
the politics of the day, what your setting looked like, how your city operated,
who the key players were in your city, even what the weather was like.

This workshop will show you how to develop your own research plan, using the instructor’s custom research template. You’ll learn to identify the key categories of research to focus on for your story. You’ll learn how to get your local librarians, historians, and museum directors and archivists on board with your project and help you find the best resources. You’ll learn how to identify and evaluate the most credible print and online documents, including but not limited to books, periodicals, catalogs, phone directories, photo collections and more. Finally, you’ll learn how to create a list of interview questions to take to interviews with local experts, after you learn how to identify the people in your town who can deliver first or secondhand stories and details.

Nicole Caron’s nonfiction has appeared in numerous trade publications and regional magazines. She is currently at work on a trilogy about a fictional St. Petersburg, Florida family spanning five generations. She is also working on a collection of essays about writers and writing and a collection of tanka (short form Japanese poetry). Nicole lives in St. Petersburg and teaches writing and literature at Ringling College Of Art + Design, where she coordinates the First-Year Writing Program. Learn more at www.nicolecaron.com. Follow Nicole on Instagram: @NCaron27 #stpetetrilogy

MIn poetry images spark meaning. Imagery is at the center of a poem’s prosody, theme, and charge. In this course, we will focus on exploring how to create effective image-based metaphors. We will read examples, have a craft talk, write, and have the option to share.

Gloria Muñoz is a Colombian-American writer and translator. Her writing has appeared in Puerto del Sol, Shift, Lumina, The Rumpus, Best New Poets, Acentos Review, Forage Poetry, Sweet, YES Poetry, Juke Joint, The Brooklyn Review, Entropy, The Florida Review and elsewhere. She is the author of the chapbook Your Biome Has Found You. Her writing has been honored by a Creative Pinellas Emerging Artist Grant, the Estelle J. Zbar Poetry Prize, the Bettye Newman Poetry Award, the New York Summer Writer’s Institute Fellowship, USF Humanities Institute Poetry Award, and the Think Small to Think Big Artist Grant. Gloria holds degrees from Sarah Lawrence College and the University of South Florida. She teaches at Eckerd College and she is a co-founder of Pitch Her Productions, an organization dedicated to women in film.

Session Four: 3:45 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. So You Wrote a Book. What’s Next? A Discussion on Publishing Options.

Instructor: Warren Firschein

You did it—after years of work, you finished your book. Congratulations! But you’re not at the end quite yet; you still have to decide how to distribute your work.

In today’s world, the options are almost overwhelming, from self-publishing, to working with a micro-publisher, to pursuing a deal with an established publisher, or even just releasing your work for e-readers. Each option has its pros and cons. Author Warren Firschein, founder of Chapter Two Press and managing editor of the Odet literary journal, will go though the differences between these choices and make sense of the self-publishing process, including how to make your final product shine using formatting features contained in Microsoft Word. This session is intended to be interactive to answer all your questions and will go as long as necessary to provide you the information you need to make the best decision for releasing your book, as well as giving you the confidence to self-publish if that is the direction you choose.

Warren is the co-founder and managing editor of Odet, a literary journal based in Tampa Bay. A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, where he served as an editor of the University of Pittsburgh Law Review, and Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, he is a long-time attorney for the Federal Communications Commission. He is the author of Out of Synch, the highest-selling novel about the sport of synchronized swimming, as well as the co-author of A Brief History of Safety Harbor, Florida, published by The History Press in 2013.

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Upcoming events:

April’s prompt for InPrompt2: UMBRELLA

Join us on Wednesday, 4/3/19 at 7 p.m. for an open-mic style writing prompt event. If you wrote something, you’re welcome to read. Sign-ups start at 6:30. Plan on up to 7 minutes at the mic. $2 suggested donation if you can.

Discover how to find your unique voice and tap your life experience to help yourself and others. Explore your life stories and limiting beliefs, write your personal mission statement, define inspirational themes, learn about practical tools to build your platform and more. This non-sectarian class is open to people of all faith traditions.

Isabella is a contributing author for several Guideposts books daily readers and magazines and is author of Embracing Life: Letting God Determine Your Destiny, available on Amazon.com. Her short story “It’s in the Water,” was featured in literary anthology Tales from the Springs. Holding an MS in management/public relations and BA in communications from the University of Maryland, Isabella is a longtime business communications professional who has written extensively for various audiences and objectives, including newspapers, annual reports, web content and corporate collateral.

You must reserve a space prior to the class by registering through this link or making a payment in the amount of $15 at the Safety Harbor Art and Music Center by noon on the day of class. Walk-ins will be accepted at a cost of $20 as long as space is available.

Weds. March 27: Join us for our first Quorum of Parrots. We’ll have typewriters and about ten words to inspire you. You’ll be challenged like you were when you first learned to ride a bike. You’ll be challenged more than you were when you climbed Mt. Everest. Trust us, you will succeed! These are just words and words are your friends.

The not so fine, fine print: Please come empty minded but ready to explode with creativity. Please bring $5 to donate to SHAMc if you can afford it. Heck, we sure appreciate it. Please be ready to use those beautiful fingers of yours to type some beautiful words. You can also write some regular stuff. It doesn’t always have to be beautiful.

Please note: We have stopped hosting the writing critique group. We hope you will find one that suits your needs or form your own.